Shut Your Festering Gob, You Tit!!

Cold Hard Facts From The Land Down Under:

An Australian responds to Lumpy's usual whining.

“Mate. You run a country with 600,000 homeless people sleeping on the street tonight. A country where 40% of adults can’t cover a $400 emergency without borrowing money.

A country where insulin costs more than a car payment and people are rationing it to survive.

A country where medical debt is the number 1 cause of bankruptcy.

A country where women are dying in hospital car parks because doctors are too scared of abortion laws to treat a miscarriage.

You lock up more of your own citizens than any nation on earth. More than China. More than Russia. More than North Korea. The land of the free has 2 million people in cages, and a quarter of them haven’t even been convicted of anything. They’re just too poor to make bail.

Your life expectancy is going backwards. You’re the only developed nation where that’s happening.

Your infant mortality rate is worse than Cuba’s.

Your kids do active shooter drills between maths and English while you sell the gunmaker’s stock to your mates.

Your minimum wage hasn’t moved in 15 years.

You’ve got teachers working 2 jobs and veterans sleeping under bridges and you just spent a trillion dollars flattening a country that didn’t attack you.

And you’ve got a convicted felon, adjudicating raping, paedophile protecting, porn star shagging insurrectionist running the biggest dumpster fire war campaign since the Taliban thanked you very much for losing again.

And you’re calling Greenland poorly run? Greenland has universal healthcare. Free education. One of the lowest incarceration rates in the world. Nobody goes bankrupt there because they got sick. Nobody dies in a waiting room because their insurance said no. ‘NATO wasn’t there when we needed them.”

When exactly was that, champ? September 11? Because NATO invoked Article 5 for the first and only time in history FOR YOU. Soldiers from dozens of countries deployed, fought, bled, and died in Afghanistan FOR YOU. Australia wasn’t even in NATO and we still showed up. For 20 years. And you pulled out at 2am without telling anyone and left them to deal with the mess.

So maybe before you start calling other countries poorly run, have a look at your own backyard, you spray-tanned aluminium siding salesman. The only thing poorly run in this picture is your fucking mouth.” – Tony Locke

[From Twitter, via Hullabaloo.]

Why Bother?

Tom Nichols: “The United States is fighting, in some form or another, with almost everyone. America’s in a hot war with Iran and a cold war with China and Russia (even if President Trump hasn’t figured that out). Trump has ignited various trade wars, and keeps talking up a possible conflict with Cuba.”

“And just for good measure, the president Trump seems still obsessed with grabbing Greenland, which would spark a confrontation with NATO, the most powerful and successful alliance in history—and one supposedly led by Washington.”

“This might seem like a good time for some traditional diplomacy: deploying ambassadors to smooth ruffled feathers, assure friends and warn enemies of American resolve, and work out details on trade and other issues that require professional attention.”

“The problem is that those ambassadors don’t exist. As The Wall Street Journal reported last week, the Trump administration has left more than 100 ambassadorships unfilled, including some to important U.S. allies.”

Aren't there 100 millionaires or billionaires who've sucked up to Lumpy enough to qualify as ambassadors? The first thing in any presidency is to reward donors & friends w/ ambassadorships. Too dense even to get that right. And of course has no friends.

[The Atlantic via Political Wire. Slighty edited for clarity.]

Your Future Is Out Of Your Control

They're in control, not you.Gallup tells us that a third of Americans think they are insignificant nobodies. The problem is, all non-bilionaire Yankees are, but apparently two-thirds of them have been chumped but good into denial of their situation.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — One in three Americans say they lack agency in their lives, feeling like their lives are mostly dictated by circumstances beyond their control. This sentiment is expressed most commonly by younger and lower-income Americans. Local community conditions, including social ties, housing affordability and economic environment, may influence whether Americans feel able to shape their own futures. At every age and income level, people who lack reliable neighbors or live in areas with unaffordable housing and limited employment prospects are less likely than others to feel a sense of agency and, by extension, opportunity.

Oh come on! Americans have the opportunity to be abused by their masters until they drop dead sooner than any other developed shithole nation. You want "agency"? Get a gun & some ammo & act!! Express yourselves!!

"Yeeeeessssss?"

When Tee Vee Was King

Kills me every time. Plenty more on YouTube; do your own research.

J.J. Sedelmaier, director of the Wendy's "Where's The Beef?" commercial & other popular '80s adverts, was 92.They're dropping like flies.

 New Jersey Online:

Donald Newhouse, who inherited a media empire, led Advance Publications' newspaper and cable TV divisions, and was Newark Star-Ledger president, dies at 96  —  Donald E. Newhouse, who as President of The Star-Ledger and head of Advance Publications' newspaper group presided over a prolonged period …

Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine:   BuzzMachine  —  I am terribly saddened at word of the death of Donald Newhouse …

Clay Risen / New York Times:   Donald E. Newhouse, Low-Profile Heir to a Media Empire, Dies at 96

Larry Arnold / Bloomberg:   Donald Newhouse, Who Led Family's Newspaper Group, Dies at 96

Genaro C. Armas / Newhouse School …:   Donald Newhouse's Belief in Higher Education Helped Establish Syracuse University as a Premier Training Ground for Journalists

Just saw this, for Saurday 19 November 1955. More Weterns than you could shake a six-shooter at, & Yma Sumac on Stage Show w/ the Dorsey Bros. In Jan. '56 Elvis Presley made his first national telebision appearance on the program.

[Sedelmaier obit from Off the Kuff.]

Not A Boondoggle, A Moondoggle

"Let's Build A Stairwy To The Stars
Encourage A Lunar Economy"

What will this lunar economy be? Dowsing for water? Digging holes to live in? Repairing micrometeorite damage?

NASA lays out moon base plans with landers, buggies and drones at the top of the list

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA is already ordering landers, rovers and drones for a sprawling moon base, less than two months after the Artemis II’s record-breaking lunar flyaround.

The space agency outlined the first phase of its moon base plans on Tuesday, awarding hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to four U.S. companies.

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin will provide a pair of landers to deliver moon buggies to the lunar surface, at a spot near the moon’s south pole. These so-called lunar terrain vehicles will be built by Astrolab and Lunar Outpost. Firefly Aerospace, which landed successfully on the moon last year, will deliver the first drones to the moon.

Well, look who's getting pork-barrel money: Suck-up Jeff Bezos. Surprise, surprise!

N.A.S.A., or the Dep't. of Space War?

“Then we’ll be able to say, ‘Hey, we’re permanently here and we’re not giving it up,’” said NASA’s moon base program executive Carlos Garcia-Galan.

Garcia-Galan envisions a moon base sprawling over hundreds of square miles, with a perimeter marked by drones, dubbed MoonFall, stationed at the corners.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said these territory markers are meant to be respectful of other countries’ spacecraft and equipment that might be nearby. He expects reciprocity in the matter.

The goal of the moon base is to encourage a lunar economy while conducting scientific research and laying the foundation for a Mars expedition, Isaacman stressed.

“For those waiting patiently, the grand return is close at hand and we will not slow down,” Isaacman said. “We are really just getting started.”

Marking their "territory", like the animals they are.

Not that anyone cares, but:

Article 3

1. The moon shall be used by all States Parties exclusively for peaceful purposes.

2. Any threat or use of force or any other hostile act or threat of hostile act on the moon is prohibited. It is likewise prohibited to use the moon in order to commit any such act or to engage in any such threat in relation to the earth, the moon, spacecraft, the personnel of spacecraft or man- made space objects.

3. States Parties shall not place in orbit around or other trajectory to or around the moon objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction or place or use such weapons on or in the moon.

4. The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military maneuvers on the moon shall be forbidden. The use of military personnel for scientific research or for any other peaceful purposes shall not be prohibited. The use of any equipment or facility necessary for peaceful exploration and use of the moon shall also not be prohibited.

Of course these United Snakes may not have signed the agreement, & so what if we did, huh?

Memento Mori

Cheer up! Rick Wilson has good news for modern man.

Trump Is Dying

The Walter Reed Lie, for the 100th Time

He is seventy-nine. He turns eighty next month. He went to Walter Reed today, his third visit in thirteen months (“Totally normal! Just a third checkup in a year!”), and the White House would like you to believe this is a wellness influencer’s self-care routine rather than what it obviously is: the late-stage management of a long-abused body breaking down in public.

In all fairness, this reporter visits the croaker every three months. Of course, it takes 20 mins. or so; they check my weight, blood presssure & blood, sometimes I pee in a cup (Which has nothing to do w/ lab work & I don't know why I mention it here.) so it's nothing that couldn't be handled by the White House physician in that now-ruined dump. I'm certainly not visiting a hospital for who knows what every quarter. If there's a dental facility in the Executive Mansion there must be a scale, a sphygmomanometer, a few needles & vials & a phlebotomist & a cup. ("Circumstantial evidence" of FDR being administered cocaine for his sinuses the afternoon of 7 Dec. 1941.)

The conventional read is that this is power … the dictator phase, the strongman unleashed.

I want to suggest the opposite. Strongmen at the height of their game don’t need the ballroom. They don’t need to rename the Kennedy Center after themselves. They don’t need the gold leaf, the fake portraits, the rebranded monuments and memorials.

That’s the behavior of a man who knows the clock is running and is grabbing what he can while the grabbing is good. That’s Marcos in Manila in 1985. That’s Ceaușescu in 1988, before he and the missus were lined up against a wall.

Genuine power doesn’t need to be advertised this loudly. The frantic, escalating, almost pornographic self-celebration is the tell. It’s a confession in plain sight. The man building his mausoleum while he’s still alive is the man who knows he’s running out of road.

All things must pass.Any M.D.s out there willing to guestimate how much longer Lumpy will be w/ us? What say the prediction markets?

Now Maybe I Can Get Some Fissionable Material!

Brad Plumer / New York Times:

U.S. Seeks to Give Weapons-Grade Plutonium to Start-Ups for Fuel  —  Companies say it's a better way to dispose of the Cold War-era material — and fix a shortage of nuclear fuel.  But the plan has also faced criticism.  —  The Trump administration is moving forward with a plan …
Rachel Frazin / Associated Press:   DOE eyes using plutonium in nuclear fuel

Tim De Chant / TechCrunch:   Trump administration wants nuclear startups to use plutonium for their reactors

Ella Nilsen / KTVZ-TV:   The Trump administration is working on a deal to give weapons-grade plutonium to energy companies

Al Jazeera:   US picks potential partners for using Cold War-era plutonium as fuel

Rachel Frazin / The Hill:
Energy Department takes steps toward allowing plutonium, historically used in weapons, in nuclear fuel

Jim Mishler / NewsMax.com:   Energy Dept Opens Surplus Plutonium to Industry

Business Wire:   Oklo Selected by U.S. Department of Energy for Advanced Negotiations Under Surplus Plutonium Utilization Program

"No uranium for Iran!!" but let's put plutonium in the hands of money-grubbing civilian energy executives. Nothing could go wrong there. After all, this isn't the future anymore; it's all happened.

A nuclear-powered merchant vessel, the NS Savannah, was built. Didn't work.

But Elon Musk's atom-driven Mars rockets will leave daily from Moon Rocket Airport. And electric & fossil fuel companies will gladly surrender profits as soon as that first A-rocket does lift off successfully.

"Temperature's Rising"

The U.K. smashed a century-old temperature record for the second time in 24 hours on Tuesday as a spring heat wave continued to scorch parts of Western Europe, triggering government warnings about risks to life. Several drownings were reported in Britain and France as people tried to cool down. A temperature of 35 Celsius (95 Fahrenheit) was recorded at London's Kew Gardens and Heathrow Airport, Britain's Met Office weather service said, breaking the 34.8 C (94.6 F) record set a day earlier. The provisional readings smashed the previous record of 32.8 C (91.4 F) set in 1922 and 1944.

Are The Breeder Scum Wising Up?

In further "Kill All The Humans" news, this, paywalled by some rag:

The Great Depopulation

Why is the birth rate declining in every country on Earth?

Why has the number of births declined everywhere, all at once?

Some blame technology, particularly smartphones and social media. Others blame a kind of 21st-century weltschmerz—a sadness about the state of the world and our uncertain future in it. A long essay in The New York Times by Anna Louie Sussman, titled “Why So Few Babies? We Might Have Overlooked the Biggest Reason of All,” argues that today’s generation is too anxious about the future to make the irreversible commitment of having a child.

So who is right? Is this about phones and technology, or is it a reflection of modern anxiety about the world? Or, perhaps, both?

A bit later: The fake news is very worried.

Matt Taibbi / Racket News:   Humanity Needs to Get Offline

Bryan Hyde / American Greatness:   Declining Fertility Rate Becoming ‘Existential Crisis’

Ireland Owens / The Daily Caller:   US Facing ‘Existential Crisis’ As Fertility Rate Continues To Decline

I Hate This World & I Want This World To Know It!!

Sorry about the collateral damage, but Australopithecus could have been stopped, Nature!

Random Act Of Senseless Spraying

More than 20 people developed sore throats near a luxury department store in Tokyo’s posh Ginza shopping area on Monday after a person allegedly sprayed an unknown substance, Japanese fire department officials said. (AP video shot by Mayuko Ono)

That'll teach the consuming sheep to "shop" in a "posh shopping area". Like, oh I dunno, Rodeo Drive? Hmmm. The Beverly Dr./Rodeo Dr. station should be open in Spring 2027. I will need a better way to get out of the area, however, w/ fucking cameras everywhere, especially in the train stations & trains. I wonder if I can still ride a bicycle. And where I could ditch the bike & change threads. And where to get some of this "unknown substance".

Miserable Memorial Monday Musicale

Remember, "Happy Memorial Day" is not what should be expressed today, simple American buffoons. Tain't "Merry Xmas" here. Think about those who died, & what you're doing w/ the "freedoms" (to produce & consume, sheep) they supposedly gave you. Ten Bears posted this number earlier, 'though not this video version.Personal fave:And that concludes our exceptionally narrow narrowcast for the day, as I've better things to do than post drivel for an audience of me. Like curl up in a ball & whimper.

A Summation Of Humanoid Existence

Honoring The War Dead: You sick murdering fucks! Shame on all of you. Name another species that wages war.Fuck you, Confederates! And Mexicans, Spaniards, & Der Kaiser.

My damned suffering: Woke up after eight hrs., mentally & physically exhausted, as usual. Then felt nauseous, so nauseous I thought I was going to vomit, but only dry-heaved. Sums up your all human existence, dunnit?Added fun: My rt. Achilles' tendon started hurting in the middle of the night, for no apparent reason. Hernia has started to hurt when on the thone straining. Croaker did say it would be trouble if it interferred w/ "pooping". C'mon Doc, you must be near 50, & I'm 70-fucking-two; "pooping"? Anyway, neither sounds nor feels good.

Wknd. Riot Report II

This sounds like a "police riot".

Police stormed the offices of Turkey’s main opposition CHP party on Sunday, firing tear gas and rubber bullets at party supporters and officials who had been holed up inside for three days. It was a violent end to a standoff between members of the Republican Peoples’ Party, or CHP, and a leadership team appointed by an appeals court, escalating tensions between the opposition and the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Again, ANARCHY NOW!! Destroy the system!

Cream Of The Crop

In Humanizing The Vacuum's "Good to Great" section, these are the top three. Absolutely correct.Two Motowns & a Checker (W/ a great Don Bronstein cover.) Whence else at the time?

Surf Sunday

From this reporter's salad days.Two more I liked from HTV's list. The surfin' Trashmen are from ... Minnesota.

And to make it a Top 40 radio-style 'tween the adverts set of three under-three-mins. tunes, the Lawrence Welk version:

Dumpster Donnie

CBS firing Colbert reminds Envisioning the American Dream of something from the days of LBJ. It's always the same shit in garbage nation.Inspiration for the Cramps? Either way, a re-recording:And why can't I find the original on your crummy site, YouTube? It was easily available. Yet another reminder that everything is garbage. Searching for the original did lead to this:

There's A Riot Goin' On!

Clashes erupted between protesters and riot police after a massive anti-government rally in Belgrade on Saturday. Tens of thousands gathered against Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic. The rally was largely peaceful, but young demonstrators later clashed with police, throwing flares and rocks. (AP Video: Marko Drobnjakovic, production: Amer Cohadzic)

Fuck everything: Anarchy Now!!

More Music, More Often!

Hot Rod Music

Continued from ...

"A Foolish Consistency ...

... Is the Hobgoblin Of Little Minds"

TRUMP: "We have total control of the Strait of Hormuz"

TRUMP MOMENTS LATER: "We want the Strait of Hormuz open" pic.twitter.com/dWVybIV8CJ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 21, 2026

Well then, someone has a GIANT mind, possibly swollen by disease. It just opens the yap & spews virtually anything, anytime.

This nation will not endure until early 2029, will it? May not even survive 'til the 250th Anniv. on The Fourth of July.

Lest We Forget

Rep. Norman: January 6th was an issue that was made up in the first place.

Reporter: Made up?

Norman: That was a staged thing from day one.

Reporter: The riot was staged? Your Republican colleagues barricaded themselves in their chamber. You think they were acting? pic.twitter.com/txEnKwNso9

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 21, 2026

Keep posting this so people don’t forget how truly bad this event was.

Don’t let people gaslight you into thinking it was peaceful and worthy of 1500+ pardons and slush fund payoffs. pic.twitter.com/R4YzWQTHcC

— Jake Justice (@jakecobb) May 20, 2026

Pardons & your money hell, nothing but DEATH TO THE SEDITIONISTS!!

Rob Base, Dead At 59

That sucks. I love this song. All-time bass line.Legal name, Robert Ginyard. Predeceased by his friend & musical associate since fifth grade, DJ E-Z Rock (Rodney "Skip" Bryce) in 2014. The Wiki sez both were born on 18 May 1967. America eats its young.[Variety]

Steve M. Captures The Zeitgeist

Steve watched J.B. & added:

But it's the cultural coverage that hints at the GOP's future when Trump is gone.

This coverage is all about aspects of American life that Republican base voters believe are their property: NASCAR, pro wrestling, the military, crimefighting. It envisions a world where cops are always good and crime is always lurking. Democrats are socialist, trans, and generally weird. Republicans are the guarantors of good old-fashioned normality.

As I said last month, Republicans in the post-Trump era could be like Republicans in 1988: a party trying to carry on in the absence of a twice-elected leader who is worshipped by the base. Before the George H.W. Bush campaign found the secret to defeating Mike Dukakis (racist scare ads about Black criminals), Bush played the GOP culture card. He talked about enjoying pork rinds. He campaigned with country music legend Loretta Lynn (who said of Dukakis, "Why, I can't even pronounce his name!"). He toured a flag factory (at a time when his campaign was floating rumors that Dukakis's wife, in her youth, had burned an American flag*).

Republicans don't really care about the needs of NASCAR fans who eat pork rinds. But it's effective branding, and it will keep the GOP going once Trump is gone.

They are indeed the shallowest people imaginable.Fuck them & the advertising agencies that prey on them!

---

*This reporter burned a Yankee flag in his living room once, some 40 yrs, ago, possibly on or near the Fourth of July; some s.o.b. (Think he called hiself Zontar, Zondar, Zandar or something similar; does anyone remember who I mean?) actually tried to stop me, & then got hissy about it!

87 Today!

Friday Freak Out II

WWII Back In Blythe

"Halftracks firing at Desert Center"

U.S. Marines to Conduct Training Exercise in Blythe Starting Tuesday

U.S. Marines with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit will conduct a training exercise starting next week in Blythe to prepare for crises in urban environments.

"Crises in urban environments"? If you don't think they're going to fuck w/ voting in the cities, guess again, chumps.

Do your own research.

Blythe, earlier this wk.

[PressRelease-ReleasingBot.com]

Friday Freak Out

Music Of My Youth

Via Humanizing The Vacuum, a ranking of Numbers Four on the Hit Parade from 1963 & '64, when I was first becoming a music afficanado. We'd acquired a new GE stereo(!) radio & amplifier in '62; for some reason my immediate female ancestor informed me she didn't want to hear any rock 'n' roll on said radio. Wave a flag in front of a bull, why don't you? Oppositionally Defiant I was listening to the rock 'n' roll radio w/in mins. No one tells me nothin', y'hear?! NOTHIN"!!

It was a more innocent time, meaning people were stupid, ignorant & foolish, & I wasn't yet aware how evil you people were (although the Civil Rights Movement was giving me an idea) & that I should have started killing as many of you bastards as I could have right then. Maybe I would have made a dent in the bestial stupidity of your scum species by now.

Anyway, here are three of the selected tunes, from my "Wonder Years"®.

Waiting For Juice

Bonus electric-powered Google robot.

I wish I could juice myself up. I'm about half a level above catatonic, & could barely rouse myself to make it the few blocks to the supermarket & back.

"Fighting Communism" W/ Imperialism

Have some context. Or is it propganda?

Gun News

I hope Cuba is doing this too.Others defending themselves:

According to LADWP, the employees were attempting to perform a scheduled water shutoff when the incident occurred. The workers, who were unharmed, moved to a safe location and contacted LADWP Security and the Los Angeles Police Department.

Dunno what a "scheduled" water shutoff is, but if the DWP employees were trying to cut off the water, what the hell's he or she supposed to do? And what did the heat do to the irate property owner/renter? Inquiring minds want to know, mynewsLA.com!

Another Real Threat

I am so fucking tired of being lied to & cheated every instant of my existence in this world of shit, pain & lying cheats you fucking imbeciles have made for yourselves. What is wrong w/ all of you? Why are you all such cheating liars?

That's Yankee Dabbler, by the way. Fuck them to the theological place of eternal damnation for all eternity.

Dog Bites Man!

Is this sort of thing even "news" anymore? No one can possibly be surprised, 'though some may be disgusted & revolted. Xians, apparently, think it's how things should be. Father knows best!

Shannon Butler / WFTV:
Former ‘gay cure’ ministry leader Alan Chambers charged in underage sex sting
Bob Smietana / RNS:   Alan Chambers, former Exodus International leader, charged with soliciting minor
Quispe López / Advocate:   Former leader of ‘ex-gay’ Christian ministry arrested for soliciting sex from a minor

Can't even "cure" himself, if he does realize he's doing something more awful than the "sins" he thinks "the gays" are committing.

At least Gary Puckett tried to keep it in his pants.

Truly A Paper Tiger

By gucciminh.

The term was frequently used in Chinese Internet discourse regarding the trade war begun by United States President Donald Trump. Internet users referred to Trump as a "paper tiger", frequently observing that the United States economy depends heavily on Chinese companies for a host of necessities, electronics, and raw components.

They have him pegged.

A "quick one" from Krugman.

When the leaders of the world’s two most powerful nations met in Beijing, Chinese Premier Xi Jinping spoke about the lessons of history:

Can China and the United States transcend the so-called ‘Thucydides Trap’ and forge a new paradigm for major-power relations?”

Donald Trump, on the other hand, spoke about fast food

Just as many Chinese now love basketball and blue jeans, Chinese restaurants in America today outnumber the five largest fast food chains in the United States, all combined. That’s a pretty big statement.

I’m old enough to remember when we were a serious country.

So am I. I believe the exact phrase is "Serious as cancer".

"Basketball and blue jeans" is yet another demonstration of how shallow he is. How do already overpaid sportsball weasels getting Chinese endorsement money help any other Americans but billionaire team owners? "Blue" jeans, what is he, his grandfather? Aren't "blue jeans" made in Vietnam or Central America? The Chinese restaurant bit is obvious bullshit & means less than nothing. Mencken's "The White House will be adorned by a downright moron" is completely correct, innit?

If the "gift link" doesn't work, digby excerpted much of it.

70 Yrs. Ago Today In Railroading History

Image by O. Winston Link. ©East Bumfuck Historical Society Collection. Used w/o permission.

A.T.S.F. Locomotive 2342 & Caboose 1353 pass the bean elevators at East Bumfuck, 19 May 1956.

More Fearmongering

The proverbial chickens may be coming home to roost atop what remains of The White House.Hah! Good luck getting Congress to address anything.

Had little prior interest, but now I can't wait for the World Cup! Hey, is that blood?

Some Quality Kvetching

From 2016. He's certainly fixed all the problems on his list, hasn't he?

As a general rule, there’s value in trying to understand why those we disagree with think as they do. But there’s no reason to allow such sentiments to obscure or confuse what we are living through. The GOP has been trending this way for a long time. In 2012, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein wrote:

“The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”

Mann and Ornstein correctly identified what had been the longtime drift of the GOP by that time, and felt it necessary to say so, especially in the face of a media environment that remained wedded to a “both sides” frame that muddied that reality. Led by Trump, especially in his second term, the GOP has reached the end point of that long arc, leavened by a depth of fraud, ignorance and spite that has made even veterans of that earlier era of GOP politics blanch.

End of a party, end of the Empire ...

When will these shitheels die so I can start pissing on their graves?

[Jonathan’s Quality Kvetching Newsletter, via Hackwhackers. Part of Mann/Ornstein.]

Plague Watch

No Vaccines or Treatments

The doctor's words:

We've seen cases unrelated to each other in Kampala, the most populous city in Uganda. hundreds of kilometers away, all of which makes me realize, well, this is going to get a lot worse before it gets better, and two, we still don't have a full handle on what exactly we're grappling with yet.

Looks as if these United Snakes have the welcome mat on the porch, the door unlocked & the porch lights off. Let the punishment fit the crime. When the "NO FACE DIAPERS!" MAGA/MAHA morons start dropping, call it Trumpbola.

Monday Modeling Monotony

What I "Model" (Give Or Take 70 Yrs.)

Not actually modeling it, used as an inspiration & jumping-off point.

Did entirely too much research; I'd need more reefers & stock cars for authentic operations. Fortunately, it's a switching layout, not an operating layout.

For most of its existence, the line sourced outstanding levels of traffic carrying produce and other agricultural products from the valley. For example, an Interstate Commerce Commission report from 1956 states that the seasonal perishable train (The PVX), bound to Chicago, "averaged 69 cars," longer than the usual length of the GFX trains from California's Central Valley (although the PVX was seasonal and the GFX was year round). One week in the spring of 1954 had seen 191 carloads of lettuce, the majority percentage shipping to Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The three weeks prior to approx. April 8, 1954 saw 708 carloads of lettuce shipped. In the summer of 1959, cantaloupe shipments reached 2333 cars in the growing season. In 1970, a derailed train primarily hauling lettuce had 77 cars, with at least one of the cars appearing in the picture being a newer and longer SFRC car as opposed to a 40 ft SFRD car. And the railway agent of the Blythe yard once recalled "as many as 135 cars" at one unspecified time. But as of 1977 the train length might be 35 cars "on a good day." Off-season reefer traffic cars were dropped off to Rice or Cadiz to be picked up by other trains, while the PVX trains ran directly to the transcon line between Los Angeles and Chicago. White ice was produced in Blythe and had been shipped to Winslow, Arizona in the summer of 1949 for the reefer trains stopping there.

Grain and livestock traffic was heavy too. The Blythe-Ripley included the Union Feed Yards south of Blythe, which at one time was the largest feed yard in the country. There was a nearly four-mile spur originating from the curve near the valley's northern edge that served Riverview Farms to the east from 1954 to 1982. (Myrick, Pg. 240) Information referring to this spur is extremely scarce. You can see big pictures of those feed yards in the Palo Verde Historical Museum.

Will not be attempting any of the now reduced to slabs of concrete facilities as they were in the 1950s, but the geography fits my unwillingness to make terrain features, & I was insprired by the schadenfreude of the burg of Ripley, named after a former A.T. & S.F. president, & washed away w/ the rail line by a flood in the winter of 1922. (Maybe the schadenfreude isn't justified; money was probably made on insurance.)

You needn't arse yourselves w/ any of this; it's for this reporter's reference, & he's numb already. Hollywood's one-time provider of artificial snow was U.S. Gypsum in Midland, now a ghost town. It was burned to the sand. Dunno who "Jane" is but it's a great museum."Jane" is the guy's GPS, it turns out. What? Not a bad traveling set-up, either, if you like to leave the house.

Also, which led to geoglyphs 15 miles north of Blythe. Pardon the New Age or whatever music.Those would be fun to copy, but I'd need more space than could be spared. The longest glyph would be almost two linear ft. in HO.

Railfanning nothin', planefanning, w/ a good long look at the geography. Be quite a wasteland w/o irrigation.I'll need a shitpile of little green things to scatter about. Inspiration: W/ his name so bandied about, I think I'll call the Army facility Camp Patton instead of Camp Swampy. I s'pect the only swampy areas here would be where irrigation pipes had broken.

Looks just like it though, dunnit?

"Camp Patton" will be beneath the lovely currently cardboard backdrop at the left.

Still a Sisyphean mountain of work. Once I've painted track, sanded, painted & installed roadbed, gotten two or three bridges & lost that chunk of wood, I have to ensure adequate electricity flows though the tracks, sure to be a total effing pain involving redoing the track I'll have just finally laid, then slap together seven structure kits, most of which have been sitting here for several yrs. (Hey, I beat inflation & tariffs.)

& blow more moolah on oil loading platforms, high tension transmission poles & another electrical substation. Then scenery, signage & details. And at some point exchange couplers, purchase & add coupler boxes & buy & replace trucks on several cars. Estimated completion date is approx. the 12th of Never. Gah.

Local Naval Railroading History

I remember going past Seal Beach NWS on the Five & seeing many large spherical mines in the open, probably this Mark 6. Did the Navy have nukes there? Ask & the Navy says they "neither confirm or deny". Is that a "Yes"?

Untitled

Can't be bothered.

DAMN!

All four got out, I hope relatively unscathed."Gunfighter Skies Air Show" Grow up already!

KTFT:

4 crew members safely ejected following Idaho jet crash, AP reports  —  The Associated Press has reported that all four crew members involved in the jet collision ejected safely.  —  MOUNTAIN HOME AIR FORCE BASE, Idaho — Four crew members were able to safely eject from their aircraft …
Anthony Blair / New York Post:   Idaho air show horror after 2 jets crash in front of frightened spectators

Carter Schroppe / Washington Examiner:   Two F-18s collide at Idaho air show; all four crewmembers safe after ejecting

New York Times:   Two Military Jets Collide in Midair at Idaho Air Show

Jennifer Van Laar / RedState:   Breaking: Navy Fighter Jets Collide During Air Show at Mountain Home AFB

WWL-TV:   Jets collide during Idaho air show, prompt Air Force base lockdown and investigation

Fox News:   Two Navy jets crash midair as crew successfully ejects during Idaho military base air show

Justmindy / twitchy.com:   Miracle Ejection: Two Navy Fighter Jets Collide and Explode Over Idaho Airshow

Joseph Chalfant / Townhall:   Two Navy Aircraft Suffer Mid-Air Collision at Idaho Air Show

CBS News:   Fighter jets crash in midair during air show at Idaho Air Force base

Cassandra MacDonald / The Gateway Pundit:   SHOCKING VIDEO: Two Navy Jets Crash into Each Other Mid-Air at the Gunfighter Skies Air Show in Idaho, Four Parachutes Seen Floating to the Ground

Nicholas Slayton / Task & Purpose:   Air crews safely eject after two Navy jets collide during air show

Heather Mongilio / USNI News:   Naval Aviators Safe After EA-18G Growlers Crash at Idaho Air Show

Thomas Stevenson / The Post Millennial:   BREAKING: Two US Navy fighter jets collide during air show in Idaho

Addy Bink / KTLA:   Crews eject after ‘midair collision’ at Idaho Air Force base air show

Note how the fake news liars refer to them as "fighter jets", like the metal eight-yr. olds they are. Childish, & redundant (Pretty sure there are no more prop-driven fighter aircraft.) if true, however, "Growlers" aren't actual fighters, but electronic warfare platforms.

Use of the passive voice: "Two Navy Aircraft Suffer Mid-Air Collision at Idaho Air Show". Suffering, it can't be explained. It just happens, man. Wasn't a "miracle" either. It's called applied science. Ninnies.